What’s driving growth in hospitals? Increased crime, regulatory requirements, and boosting employee and patient satisfaction all have upgrade potential for health care security.
What's driving growth in hospitals? Increased crime, regulatory requirements, and boosting employee and patient satisfaction all have upgrade potential for health care security.
While regulations have traditionally driven security investments, recent incidents involving crime, ER violence, and compromised patient records have highlighted the need for more effective physical access control and surveillance. With increasing crime rates and threats against hospital staff, patients, and visitors, a high level of security is a top priority.
Crime and data breaches
Security concerns at health care facilities are increasing. A report from The International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS) found the number of health care crimes increased by nearly 37 percent in two years, from just under 15,000 in 2010 to more than 20,500 in 2012.
Data breaches pose another security threat. Nine out of 10 hospitals in the U.S. suffered a data breach or intrusion in their networks over the past two years, according to the Ponemon Institute. The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates some 21 million patient records have been compromised in health care data breaches since 2009.
These reports and surveys underscore the need for safer, more secure, efficient, and integrated security solutions. To compound all the continued risks hospitals face, the health care market is changing, which brings opportunities. “One of the key drivers we see is when hospitals are upgrading, extending or updating their facilities, they take a fresh look at their security solutions and determine if they can meet their specific requirements now and in the future,” said Andrew Fulton, Senior Director of Global Sales at CEM Systems. “There are also growing demands faced by public sector organizations, such as hospitals in the U.K., to evaluate existing security systems and deploy updated technology. Patient and staff security is also another major concern faced by hospitals that needs to be continually addressed.”